Fox host walks back 'crack' crack

Fox News commentator Eric Bolling insisted he was just joking Thursday after saying that Rep. Maxine Waters should “step away from the crack pipe.”

“What is going on in California? How’s this? Congresswoman, you saw what happened to Whitney Houston. Step away from the crack pipe, step away from the Xanax, step away from the Lorazepam because it’s going to get you in trouble.” Bolling said about Waters on “Fox and Friends.” “How else do you explain those comments?”

Bolling was reacting to comments Waters had made in a speech Wednesday, in which she had called Republicans “demons.”

“We have got to take back the House. I saw pictures of Boehner and Cantor on our screen [at the California state Democratic convention]. Don’t ever let me see again in life those Republicans in our hall on our screen talking about anything. These are demons,” Waters said in a video clip played on Fox. She didn’t appear on the Fox morning show.

Immediately after the commercial break, Bolling walked back his comments.

“Alright, before we get started, I just want to say I was kidding about the crack pipe. Just kidding,” he said.

There is no evidence that crack cocaine was involved in Whitney Houston’s death. The investigation into the cause of her death is awaiting toxicology results.

Prescription drugs were found in the hotel room where she was found dead but not in large quantities, according to the AP.

Waters also said in her speech Wednesday that banks and financial institutions will be “shaking in their boots” if Democrats win back the House of Representatives and she becomes chairwoman of the Financial Services Committee.

“Barney Frank is about to retire and guess who is shaking in their boots? The too-big-to-fail banks and financial institutions and all of Wall Street, because Maxine Waters is going to be the next chair of the Financial Services Committee,” she said.